So, there has been talk and adjustments to Daggers and Rapiers, how about some of the other Weapon skills get updated or fixed?

[Grave 0]

Basically everything I was planning to say has already been said XD BUT, being a Martial Arts Grandmaster, I know firsthand that MA needs a buff. People will argue 'Oh, but it's enough that Martial Arts is an easy extra skill'. Actually it's not without the help of a higher ranked MA user. Many players complain about how long BtUB takes to finish, and when you do get MA, what does it matter that it's an extra skill? Yes, it gives a slot next to your base 10, but other than that it is NO different to any other weapon skill.

Another fact people argue is the large amount of stuns. When we think of Martial Arts, 'stunning' someone isn't the first thought that comes to mind, although it is there. When we think 'Martial Arts', we think breaking bones, cracking skulls and dealing concussive damage with one's body. Not to mention it adds energy, so MA becomes very energy consuming, as well as the fact an opponent can only be stunned every three of their turns. Sure, when coupled with other players it can be more useful, but I don't want to have to rely on other people all the time to carry me like a princess.

That's basically everything I think about Martial Arts, being a Grandmaster myself, and I would also be willing to join in with this 'SA reformation' group, if my assistance is required.

[Opal 0]

I understand we are worried about what our current Sword Arts, or weapon we use is unbalanced. That has been stated and we are getting way off topic just stating over again that its an imperfect system. We know this; so now we need to find the problems and then make solutions for those problems without being bias of our own SA and Weapon Classes. 

So; first point of discussions should be about the weapons themselves. Lets take  10 steps back and work on those unique traits we were going over and start with the first Weapon Class and work on it rather than jumping all around with damage, sword arts progression, our own SA and Weapons. First on that list should be: [First on the list; that one being in the sword arts category. Dagger is listed first so let's just go down that list and do each weapon class first.]

Dagger: Used mostly by rogue style characters, In other games the weapon can be concealed easily, great for stealth and assassination. Mechanically works well with crit and fast paced characters. High combo attacks but normally does very little dmg compared to larger weapons. However, higher chance of critical and lets not forget a free attack with Surprise Attack which is basically our Back Stab Ability. 

Unique Trait Ideas:
- Each Rank of the Weapon Class gives the wielder access to better chances at critical attacks. Must be NATURAL Rolls. 
Rank 1: 10 BD
Rank 2: 9-10 BD
Rank 3: 8-10 BD
Rank 4: 7-10 BD
Rank 5: 6-10 BD

- A Passive Ability that allows the Player to roll again if they miss the first time. [Once per Thread]

-A Passive ability that add +1 to Acc or +1 EVA during defending Player's turn. 

-Free Bleed/Poison mechanic: A Critical Strike will automatically apply bleed/poison to the Mob without the need of an enhancement to do so. 

Base Damage [Suggested Ideas]: 1, [+1 Per Weapon Rank until 5th Rank which gives +2 Dmg]

Neo Sword Arts [Suggested Ideas]: 

Unique/Personal Sword Art: Kinda like a Character's Limit Break/Noble Phantasm ect [ We can discuss this at length after we finish up the problem areas as this would be an Add-On rather than a fix.]

 
 

 

Edited June 8, 2016 by Opal

[Nikodemus_Blackwood 1]

2 minutes ago, Opal said:

Dagger: Used mostly by rogue style characters, In other games the weapon can be concealed easily, great for stealth and assassination. Mechanically works well with crit and fast paced characters. High combo attacks but normally does very little dmg compared to larger weapons. However, higher chance of critical and lets not forget a free attack with Surprise Attack which is basically our Back Stab Ability. 

Unique Trait Ideas:
- Each Rank of the Weapon Class gives the wielder access to better chances at critical attacks. Must be NATURAL Rolls. 
Rank 1: 10 BD
Rank 2: 9-10 BD
Rank 3: 8-10 BD
Rank 4: 7-10 BD
Rank 5: 6-10 BD

- A Passive Ability that allows the Player to roll again if they miss the first time. 

-A Passive ability that add +1 to Acc or +1 EVA during defending Player's turn. 

-Free Bleed/Poison mechanic: A Critical Strike will automatically apply bleed/poison to the Mob without the need of an enhancement to do so. 

 

I think most of this is good. The only thing I would suggest is that: - A Passive Ability that allows the Player to roll again if they miss the first time.  be changed to re-roll a natural 1 once per thread. The +1 ACC/EVA is good, and the Bleed/Poison is good also. The Crit chance buff is good too, and takes the Rapier idea Rain put forth and gives it more of a depth.

 

The only item I can add is that the weapon should have a base damage of either the standard 1, or maybe 2, and then upgrade by 1 with every rank you put into it, making it a base damage of 6 as is, or 7. It will allow for good DMG with SA multipliers and such, but not be too weak IMO.

[Seul 1]

While we're talking about sword arts, how would people feel about putting cool downs on them?

I mean... Right now there's no real reason to use anything except your strongest one. Ever. I even find myself only spamming using Cross Edge all the time because there's no point in using stuff like Shadow Stitch. Idunno, I just think there could be more strategy in a sophisticated game like SAO. Plotting your energy usage is all fine and good, but at times it feels more like a button mash more than anything. On top of that there could be mods that reduce cool down timers if you feel inclined to get them.

Also going to mention another thing I've seen which is having different sword arts across all weapons and ranks generate different amounts of hate. It sounds confusing but hear me out on this. A lot of games do this with their skill systems and often times players generate hate that correlates to the amount of damage they dish out.

Essentially if the enemy is taking massive amounts of damage from one person in the group, it'll see that player as a larger threat than anyone else and decide to target him or her more often because of it. Right now regardless of whether you use a basic attack or use your strongest sword art you usually just generate one hate. Have someone Howl twice in a row and you're set for the fight. Boom. Genius tanking. But there's no risk for people accidentally drawing aggro to themselves. Not to say that people should be doing that, but it is something that occurs in actual games sometimes when you play with newbs. But then again maybe I'm overthinking it. This isn't an actual game after all so implementing such things may be more trouble than its worth. :T

[Grave 0]

1 hour ago, Seul said:

While we're talking about sword arts, how would people feel about putting cool downs on them?

I mean... Right now there's no real reason to use anything except your strongest one. Ever. I even find myself only spamming using Cross Edge all the time because there's no point in using stuff like Shadow Stitch. Idunno, I just think there could be more strategy in a sophisticated game like SAO. Plotting your energy usage is all fine and good, but at times it feels more like a button mash more than anything. On top of that there could be mods that reduce cool down timers if you feel inclined to get them.

OH MY GOD YES, I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS

In the world of SAO, energy isn't even a thing. What defines how often a player uses a particular Sword Skill is two things; a Cooldown on stronger Sword Skills, and a 'Post-Motion' to match. Of course, in a PbP forum game, implementing a system that makes a player freeze in position for a short time might be a little tedious and overpowered for the opposing party, but cool downs could easily replace energy. I'm thinking cool downs could go with rank; rank one sword arts could just be spammed, rank two has to wait every other post, etc. Stun abilities could increase that Cooldown by one, and AOE by two.

However, the biggest problem I find with my idea is how to stop people from using their strongest SA in a rank, for example spamming their highest rank one, while their 1x1 lays there and does nothing. Suggestions would be amazing.

[Rain 0]

3 hours ago, Grave said:

I'm thinking cool downs could go with rank; rank one sword arts could just be spammed, rank two has to wait every other post, etc. Stun abilities could increase that Cooldown by one, and AOE by two.

However, the biggest problem I find with my idea is how to stop people from using their strongest SA in a rank, for example spamming their highest rank one, while their 1x1 lays there and does nothing. Suggestions would be amazing.

If by post you mean player post then that might be a bit much with high ranked SA... some thread's story line go over a lenghty timeline. what if it's posts in the thread. say one person uses a R5 SA... 5 consecutive posts later the SA goes off cd. This might be abused in large boss fights though, so maybe we can change the timer in those fights to double or triple so they'll have to actually wait.. not just spam again cause enough people posted before them... uh.. do you get what I mean? I can't think of the right words - i think - to explain..

Quote

Dagger: Used mostly by rogue style characters, In other games the weapon can be concealed easily, great for stealth and assassination. Mechanically works well with crit and fast paced characters. High combo attacks but normally does very little dmg compared to larger weapons. However, higher chance of critical and lets not forget a free attack with Surprise Attack which is basically our Back Stab Ability. 

Unique Trait Ideas:
- Each Rank of the Weapon Class gives the wielder access to better chances at critical attacks. Must be NATURAL Rolls. 
Rank 1: 10 BD
Rank 2: 9-10 BD
Rank 3: 8-10 BD
Rank 4: 7-10 BD
Rank 5: 6-10 BD

- A Passive Ability that allows the Player to roll again if they miss the first time. [Once per Thread]

-A Passive ability that add +1 to Acc or +1 EVA during defending Player's turn. 

-Free Bleed/Poison mechanic: A Critical Strike will automatically apply bleed/poison to the Mob without the need of an enhancement to do so. 

Base Damage [Suggested Ideas]: 1, [+1 Per Weapon Rank until 5th Rank which gives +2 Dmg]

Neo Sword Arts [Suggested Ideas]: 

Unique/Personal Sword Art: Kinda like a Character's Limit Break/Noble Phantasm ect [ We can discuss this at length after we finish up the problem areas as this would be an Add-On rather than a fix.]

I like it. especially the unique sword art. :3 I think that could just be approved by PSTs and be unlocked at grandmaster. (would make sense right?)

Anyways... If we're gonna set the standards on depth this high, we're gonna have to really beef up the rest. But I'm fine with that. :3

The unique trait and free bleed/poison mechanic work well with each other. I just feel like it works too well, that it could be too much. The chances of criting - I think -would get too high if the crit is that easy at rank 5. I feel like they should work for that crit. That's why I had the idea of building a steady increasing crit chance on the rapier.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Rain

[Grave 0]

I'm thinking for threads with like two or three people the player's posts would act as the Cooldown posts, but in large-scale fights such as the raids cooldowns could be halved, rounded up, so rank one and two can be used on any turn, they have to wait two turns for three and four, and three turns for five.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Thought I'd pipe up my opinion while I'm browsing.

Cooldowns were considered but decided too trivial. All you would do is cycle from strongest to weakest until the strongest is available again. So I used energy, inspired by the Vita version of Hollow Fragment. I should note in the PS4:Re Hollow Fragment, this energy use was relegated to only their buff/debuff 'magic' system and SA's put on cooldown, but they also have real time and not turn based combat and sword art chaining so this becomes a whole other matter entirely.

Making the weapon system more...unique between weapons is something I had wanted to do, but I could never figure a way to do it without making the math too complex and non-readable. I'm sure the current team have had the mental epiphany I haven't had though. I think the main issue I had was I'd make it more complex if we were able to automate a lot of the math.

On 08/06/2016 at 4:44 AM, Nikodemus_Blackwood said:

-snip-

This is what the item tier scaling system was designed for. I eventually ironed out damage and defence on armor and weapons to roughly balance out based on the scaling formulas of enemies too. So what you'll find as a trend is skills mean a lot in early levels, but as you progress, your item tiers overtake in importance. This was what actually the big revamp in mitigation and armor skills I had done did, which before would have fallen horribly late game in terms of defensive capability.

All enemies, including bosses, are scaled based on individual floor level (roughly) based on a template Zero and I conceptualised. So Floor 21 enemies would in fact not be like a sudden train coming your way, but difficulty increase is gradual.